Email Marketing 2016 – Recap

There are many paths to take when choosing where to spend your hard earned marketing budget. Email marketing has been a top choice for many years, and the power of email marketing has not diminished. Having an email list full of active, engaged subscribers is a proven way to increase sales and revenue.

The Expand2Web Experts Group revisits the subject of email marketing every few years and looks at what has changed, best practices for today, and what the future of email marketing may hold.

What We Covered In Email Marketing Revisited – 2016:

In Email Marketing Revisited – 2016, we discussed the importance of email marketing for freelancers and small businesses. Our discussion included the components needed for a successful email list, including the double opt-in process, and shared a few working examples.

Email is easy to customize and integrate into existing marketing systems

Email marketing is very inexpensive

The Components of a Successful Email List

To be successful with your email marketing efforts, there are a few key components that you should be sure to include. These components will help you to ensure your list follows ethical and legal guidelines, has the ability to grow over time and increase subscriber engagement. The key components are:

Email list: A list of subscribers who have given you permission to send them email messages. By segmenting your email list you can target specific customer personas with information important to them.

Double opt-in process: By having a two-step opt-in process, you ensure that no one can be added to your list without their permission.

Email service/marketing provider: An email service provider (ESP) is a company that offers email marketing or bulk email services. By using a trusted email service provider, you help to ensure email deliverability as well as gaining access to powerful built-in tools and analytics.

Compelling offer: A compelling offer is something you share with people to encourage them to subscribe to your email list. The offer could be a free e-book, a coupon, or access to an excluse email series.

Autoresponder series: Create a short series of 3-10 emails that are sent automatically at a set interval after a new visitor signs up. This helps foster subscriber engagement and your ESP can automate and track the email series.

Thank you and confirmation pages: The Thank You page initiates the double opt-in process. The Confirmation page finishes the process and provides a link to the compelling offer.

Email Marketing Workshop – MailChimp:

In our follow-up workshop on email marketing, we looked at setting up an email list in MailChimp, a popular ESP. We showed the steps for creating your first list, importing subscribers, creating a sign-up form and embedding it on your website. We also explored sending email campaigns, segmenting your email list, and sending a campaign to a specific segment of your subscribers.